BROADLY NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODIES; a new way of treating HIV

Recently scientists claim that they have found an alternative treatment for fighting against HIV. This is far more effective than the retroviral drug. They called this treatment BROADLY NEUTRALIZING ANTIBODIES or bNAbs (pronounced bee-nabbs).

Human immune deficiency Virus (HIV) is a major cause of concern for today’s scientific community. There is not any 100% curable treatment for this disease. According to the United Nation’s report 37 million individuals are suffering from HIV and are at risk of developing AIDS(Acquired immune deficiency syndrome). Moreover, currently there is 1, 32,000 peoples have HIV/AIDS in Pakistan. These retroviral infection cases are reported more in Punjab and Sindh than other provinces of the world.

Group of young multiracial woman with red ribbons in hands are struggling against HIV/AIDS. AIDS awareness concept.

Michel C. Nussenzweig, Marina Caskey, and their colleagues identified a couple of antibodies. The combination of these can be able to fight against the virus for up to 30 weeks. This news creates a new hope in the scientific community for treating this disease.

GENERAL PROCEDURE OF TREATMENT:

According to the research published in the journal Nature and Nature Medicine,Researchers took a group of 9 volunteers

They had been on anti-retroviral drug therapy

Researchers stopped their medication.

They then were introduced with two antibodies infusion 3BNC117 and 10-1074.

These antibodies were taken from the bodies of those individuals that can naturally fight against HIV without the aid of medications.

This procedure was repeated thrice in a period of six weeks.

No side effects were observed except mild fatigue in few patients.

OBJECTIVES AND GOALS:

The objective of this treatment is to boost HIV patient’s immune system in such a way that he is capable of fighting HIV virus naturally without drugs and the patient can get rid of daily medication due to its longer benefits.

Although at present, the researchers will have to do a lot more advancement in this treatment however they are very much confident about the success. Caskey said, “These two antibodies are not going to work for everyone, but if we start to combine this therapy with other antibodies or with antiretroviral drugs, it could be effective in more people—and that’s something we hope to look at in future studies.”